Religion fails whenever it sees itself as a necessary intermediary to God.

Monday, 9 January 2012

Wisdom of Kabbalah

Tree of Life

Many of us are reluctant to look at matters of faith outside
our adopted religion.We worry if
perhaps it could send us off on the wrong path, or worse come into conflict
with our adopted belief system. Perhaps
our biggest fear is that we may suddenly find ourselves on the ‘outside’ of
our established religious community. But
these doubts have more to do what others think rather than where we should place our trust i.e., on what
resonates in the depths of our heart. (if it doesn't resonate - simply move on). Our
heart is the place where God resides. Trusting in God means we will not be lead into temptation.
All true conversion, according to the greatest mystics, comes from
accepting the inevitability of change. Oh, by the way. the Creator is known by many names (just look it up in Wikipedia), but he reads our heart and intent and is never confused by our words.

Lets make the case even simpler.Suppose you are listening to the radio and
you suddenly hear a beautiful piece of music you had never heard before.The melody, the tune, perhaps the words move
you the point of tears.Should you turn it off because it hasn’t been part of your previous
experience?Of course not!You wait to hear it again and again until you
hear it in your head without it even being played. So it is with examining and even capturing God’s
inspired wisdom from other traditions.So
this week I would like to share some wisdom from some of our Jewish brothers
and sisters who have studied Kabbalah*. The chosen topic proved to be very relevant because it
relates directly to my anxieties and fears about the cancer with which I am
dealing right now.

Is it friend or
foe? In an age where time seems to be traveling faster and choices are vaster
-- living on the verge of an anxiety attack is becoming commonplace. Learn what
triggers this strange emotion and how to use its force in your favor.

One word is all it takes and suddenly your
thoughts are going so fast that they create a vortex in your throat making
breathing impossible. Confusion is the name of the game and you cannot imagine
where to go from here.

These are some of the symptoms of anxiety.
There is little comfort in knowing that we've all experienced anxiety on some
level at some point in our lives. Anxiety comes when we are faced with a
defining, life-changing moment or, perhaps, when we are required to make an
important decision. We feel our worst imagined fears creep into our
self-conscious where they multiply, inciting uncertainty and worry over
something that might -- or might not -- ever happen.

The great French philosopher Montaigne once
wrote, "My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never
happened." Anxiety distorts normal worries and magnifies them. We become
trapped like flies in webs of our own making, struggling helplessly, paralyzed
from taking the necessary action to free ourselves.
Fear is based on known danger, something tangible: a lump discovered during a
routine breast self-examination, an impending bankruptcy. These are problems we
know are real: we can touch the lump, we can see the debt. And although the
problems are overwhelming, there are things that can be done: removing the
lump, special diets, treatments; restructuring the business, finding investors.
With anxiety, however, we feel haunted, out of control. Yet when pressed, we
can rarely pinpoint the exact cause. Because anxiety has no physical origin, it
is a disorder that baffles doctors and resists medicine. Sufferers who look to
pills, tonics and drug regimens for relief rarely find it.

Yet, despite the negative connotations
attached to the word anxiety, the sensation itself can create within us a truly
positive effect. And though it is something we desire never to experience, we
are usually better for having done so. Anxiety is both a terrible curse and an
enormous blessing.

It all depends on how you look at it.

Kabbalists suggest that we should view
anxiety in a positive light. They believe that it manifests itself to remind us
that we are not realizing our full potential in this world, that we are not
fulfilling our purpose. Only with the spur of constant self-evaluation, which
often begins with anxiety, will we strive to do better and succeed in our
efforts. In fact, medical science supports this perspective. Many doctors
contend that some anxiety is a good thing. In his full-length treatise on the
subject, Anxiety (Oxford, 1986), Donald W. Goodwin, M.D. suggests that stress
is a useful tool that can "build character, enhance creativity and
encourage us to do better." With anxiety, we experience a heightened
awareness of ourselves. According to the American Medical Association, anxiety
also helps us respond to emergencies.
Thus the paradoxical nature of anxiety -- is it good or bad for us? How can we
diminish the negative effects of anxiety and use its positive effects to prod
ourselves to do better? How can we best use our anxious thoughts to help us
achieve our goals?

There is an old saying: "Fear knocked.
Faith answered. No one was there." Those who study the Kabbalah believe
that anxiety occurs when we don't have certainty. By refusing to trust in God,
or in the perfection of the ultimate plan, we accept burdens we were never
meant to bear and, therefore, feel uneasy, depressed and afraid. Our bodies
respond physically to this spiritual imbalance, which is why anxiety sufferers
often experience headaches, dizziness, heart palpitations, incredible fatigue
and respiratory problems.

According to the Kabbalah, however, our
awareness of anxiety is the Creator's way of offering us a chance to reconnect
with Him, a wake-up call to the spirit. Kabbalists believe that through anxiety
we are alerted to a wrong turn we have taken, thereby giving us the capacity to
re-orient ourselves on the path to our true destiny. Perhaps we were too
focused on personal desires or in attaining fame or fortune and neglected our
spiritual needs and the needs of others. Anxiety offers us the chance to step
back and look objectively at our lives. "Review it and it will uplift
you" (Mishlei 4:8). We need to examine our emotional and spiritual
priorities and actively work to achieve them. Only then can we experience true
peace of mind.

Tips For Dealing With Anxiety When It
Strikes
• Keep a diary: each day write down five things for which you are grateful.
• Practice random acts of kindness.
• Recognize your incredible potential and strive to maximize it every day.
• Take your mind off your worries by helping others.
• Face your fears -- they are not as terrible as you imagine.
• Embrace the positive aspects of anxiety and use them to improve your life.

Some of what has
been offered here, I already practise.Fear is the great motivator. Writing a diary is probably at the top of the
list.And I will expand just a tiny but
very significant bit about that.Allow
God to speak directly to your fears and anxieties – it really, really
works.When I get braver I will share
some of these letters.But for now
listen to your own heart and use the tools offered by our Kabbalist friends who
seek the same God we look for.

Lastly I hope I can encourage you to learn to use God's very practical gift of discernment to hear his Voice when it orginates from distant and perhaps unexplored places in our wonderful ever expanding universe.

* Kabbalah is not a religion but rather ancient inspired text which offering practical tools to help us come closer to God. More about Kabbalah at a later blog. In the meantime if you want to learn more about fear and anxiety from a Kabbalistic point of view you may wish to purchase Yehuda Berg's small book 'The Monster is Real: How to face your fears and eliminate them forever.